'Demon' Causes Prisoner To Stab Pencil In Brain, Kill NJ Cellmate: DOJ

FAIRTON, NJ — A prisoner who stabbed his cellmate to death said he was possessed by a demon that caused him to attack at the Federal Correctional Institution, court records show.

William Vontrail Johnson, 39, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, made his initial court appearance on Thursday after being charged with murder in the 2025 slaying.

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On March 4, 2025, Johnson went into a fellow prisoner's cell to give him a notebook and ask him to mail it to his mother.

He then said "I got to do this" and "I'm going to miss you," to the man.

Johnson went back to his cell at around 7:30 a.m. and left at around 11 a.m.

Almost immediately, the prisoner who he gave the notebook to saw Johnson flustered with his shoes untied and what looked like drops of blood on his head and bottom of his pants.

The fellow prisoner went over to Johnson's cell and saw his cellmate lying in a pool of blood. He then went to staff and reported the scene.

A mandatory lockdown was put into place for the Housing Unit, and an officer noticed Johnson running from one unit to another.

Staff tried to stop him, but he was able to barricade himself in a phone room with a chair against the door. Within two minutes, officers were able to persuade him to leave the space.

He was escorted to the Special Housing Unit and secluded from other prisoners. During this trip, he told a lieutenant "You're next," and attacked him verbally with graphic language.

At this time, Johnson had minor cuts on his head, hands and knuckles that were all actively bleeding.

Officers took pictures of his hands and face to document the situation. During this period, Johnson told the lieutenant he was going to shove his foot in his mouth and that he knew the lieutenant had a foot fetish, court filings said.

When emergency responders got to the man in the pool of blood, he was found with injuries to his left eye, neck, and face, along with tissue hanging from his eye socket.

The man's family identified him as Markis Nathan Rattling Leaf, 42, of South Dakota, according to NJ Advance Media.

Leaf was considered a Native American spiritual leader as part of the Rosebud Sioux tribe and was serving a federal sentence for abusive sexual contact with an eight-year-old.

He was found unresponsive and with no pulse before being taken to a staging location. Paramedics were able to perform lifesaving efforts that brought back spontaneous circulation that led him to be flown to a hospital for further care.

Hospital records showed Leaf was stabbed in the left eye with a pencil that was fully lodged into his brain.

He was declared brain dead and declared dead on March 5, 2025, at around 4:20 p.m.

In an interview on March 4 with federal agents, Johnson said he had a "thing" crawl into his throat that attached itself to his neck and tonsils while he was at another facility in Oklahoma.

He said he was then possessed by the demon moving forward and that more creatures were attaching themselves to him and not allowing him to sleep.

Johnson said he thought his cellmate worked for the "people" and was touching his back to check if the demon was still alive while also helping it to grow. He then "snapped" and attacked him.

After trying to choke him to death, he "tried to kill him in all kinds of ways," including stabbing him with a pencil through the eye and nose.

This, Johnson said, was after he also took his "entire collection of pills" he was building inside the prison.

Johnson, who was already serving time for child sex trafficking at the time of the attack, faces a maximum of life in jail and a fine of up to $250,000.

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